Pigs might look cute, but the best practice is to keep a healthy distance, experts say.

Health officials blamed state and county fairs for last year’s high numbers of swine-flu
cases.

One particular strain — H3N2v — has infected 333 people in 13 states since 2011, according to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those included 107 — almost one-third of known occurrences in the United States — in Ohio. There
was one death in the United States last year, and it was a 61-year-old Madison County woman who
died after direct exposure to pigs at the Ross County Fair.

There were four cases in Franklin County last year.

As of yesterday, there were 12 cases reported nationwide, all in Indiana.

In Ohio this year, state officials are taking precautions to curb the transmission of the virus
on fairgrounds across the state. Locally, the Franklin County Fair opens July 13, and the Ohio
State Fair kicks off 11 days later.

“We know that this is a setting where there’s close contact between animals and humans,” said
Tessie Pollock, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Health.

So what should you do?

• For starters, if you fit into a high-risk group, don’t pet the pigs. That means older adults,
young children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems should stay away from the
barns altogether.

• Don’t take food or drink into a swine barn because pigs’ “respiratory droplets” can cling to
drinking straws or snack foods.

The Ohio Department of Agriculture has rolled out new suggested practices to state and county
fair boards. This year, representatives from each fair board were required to attend an education
session.

One new practice is that every fair board has been encouraged to establish a seven-day isolation
period before allowing pigs to enter its barns, said Erica Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the
Agriculture Department.

That means pigs that already have been to one fair must wait at least a week before it goes to
another.

“We’ve been trying to encourage fairs to move toward terminal shows,” Hawkins said. That means
that show pigs should go straight to market or slaughter after a fair.

Fair boards have also been encouraged to develop relationships with veterinarians, who should be
notified if pigs show signs of illness. And a protocol for quarantining sick pigs should be
implemented.

Despite the precautions, the state said it doesn’t want to panic fairgoers.